As I've said before, I am fascinated by tornadoes. They and the fear and awe of them have shaped my understanding of the Midwest for my entire life. This blog is based on the idea that your life can be literally picked up and moved at any point by chaos or God or some other unpredictable storm.
My wife and I were in Lawrence, KS on Sunday evening - enjoying a fabulous wedding reception with old friends we hadn't seen in awhile. About 11:30 pm I received the following text message from my brother: "f4 tornado hits parkersburg. town gone."
I've never had a message quite like that.
For those of you not familiar with my background - I grew up in a tiny community in NE Iowa. The size of a duck-fart, around 450 people. No stop lights. A single Catholic church. One gas station. Biggest employers are the local taverns. It's the type of town where you can mail something to just a name sans an address, and the postmaster will make sure it gets delivered. Every state has a town like this. They are all over the Midwest. Most have either died a slow death due to tough agricultural issues and lack of commercial industry. Some have been swallowed up by a neighboring city. In the case of my hometown, its only access is from 2-lane county and state highways. These types of communities are proud beyond belief. If you were raised in a small town, you are even prouder of the experiences you had growing up.
So when the hangover subsided Monday morning, I hopped on a computer at the hotel to look up the damage and see what the text message the night before was all about. What I saw put a lump in my throat.
If you are reading this, you no doubt have already heard about news concerning the tornadoes that struck Iowa and Minnesota over the weekend. As with any major tornado news story there were tales of survival and those not so fortunate. It's the time of year we come to know as the fifth season: Tornado Season. When I was growing up, there was always a hint of excitement when the sirens sounded during a bad thunderstorm and my parents told us to go to the basement. It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually realized how bad these things can be. I had the opportunity in 2003 to volunteer my time for a day cleaning up up after an EF2 sized tornado swept through the north part of Kansas City hitting near William Jewel College and some neighboring homes. I spent the day picking up pieces of debris no bigger than my hand. Littered across acres of land. If you are lucky, an EF2 tornado will leave your house standing without windows, doors or a roof. Everything inside will be blown out. You have to rebuild, but at least the town around you is still intact and you will have quite a few resources to get your life back up to speed. You will be missing things that are dear to you, but you can survive EF2 tornadoes by taking the correct measures of safety. It was on that day that I said to myself, "I will never take a tornado warning lightly again."
We've all done it, I'm sure. When the siren sounds - go the nearest patio and look up to the sky to see for yourself. Dodge some hail, comment on the hard rain and wind and pretend to be weather spotter.
It's also the dumbest thing anyone can do. Hell, I've done it. Not since 2003, but I've done it. When you hear that these things can virtually drop out of the sky in seconds and pound your property in less time than it takes to crack open a cold one, you realize quickly that you are just flirting with disaster. I decided on that day in 2003 that I didn't want to become a statistic. Parkersburg, IA is what you would call a hop, skip and a jump from my hometown. Far enough that you have to drive there. Close enough that you might know someone. I read the news of the families having to pack up what is left, in a single garbage bag, and find a place to sleep. Possibly with neighbors miles away. Most likely in a shelter. The destruction was so bad that the town had to be put on curfew. Only those who lived there were able to go back during daylight to continue sifting through the piles and pieces, hoping to find that last picture album or small memento. I read about the school in Parkersburg. A high-school that was everything to that town. Growing up, we knew Parkersburg to the the home of Aplington-Parkersburg. The home of the Falcons. The school with teams we ALL envied because of their power. State titles. Division 1A athletes. NFL professionals. As is the case in small towns and diminishing enrollment, the school was combined between two communities who live for everything that is on the school events calendar.
I think back to what life was like growing up with a school that had K-12 all in one building. (Not one room, one BUILDING....save the jokes.) If my entire town was wiped out and more importantly my school was leveled, it would no doubt set my town back so far I'm not so sure it would even have the ability to rebuild. Most families at that point would have probably just given up. There are few jobs around anyway and if those few small employers were taken out - there wouldn't be much reason to stick around. And losing the school would have been the only common place for kids. Things change daily in our lives, but when you are under 18 and still in school, that tends to be the central focal point of your life. And for those in Parkersburg and Aplington, IA - it's now gone.
Last year, we heard so much about the town of Greensburg, KS. Similar in size and shape to those small communities mentioned, it was completely wiped off the map by a large tornado. In that instance, it was an EF5. The mother of all tornadoes. Aka: The Finger of God - thanks to the movie "Twister." As you saw from Greensburg, the community had to make the decision of either rebuilding from scratch or to bulldoze completely and sell the land for a wind farm. They chose the former and with much outpouring of support from celebrities and other headline grabbers, they have been fortunate to get things going - albeit slowly, but the news coming from Greensburg recently sounds as though they are on their way. And good for them. Nobody should have to face erasing history and not have a hometown to go back to. I have to wonder, though, how much all of those headlines did for Greensburg. Would the overwhelming support have arrived if it wasn't for CNN, the Weather Channel and Hollywood? It needed and STILL needs every bit of that support to make sure it makes it back 100%.
Sitting here in Kansas City, I think of what it is I might be able to do to help those communities back home. Those small towns in Iowa. The state where I grew up. The place where I learned how to respect those who were older and where "Work Harder" was the recipe for success in life. Send clothes? They don't need my trash. Send food? It's Iowa. There will be food. Trust me. Send money? Sure. That's the easy thing, I guess. In situations of total disaster, money tends to do the most good. Money can help in so many ways - heck, they don't even have a toilet let alone toilet paper at this point. They need gas money to travel 20 miles just to get to a grocery store. The people affected by the weekend tornadoes in Iowa and Minnesota need the rest of us.
If you are still reading this, I'm not going to ask you send money or clothes or food. But I am going to ask you for one favor: If you have a blog or some way to send a link, please do this one simple thing. Put the link below in your next post or column and just simply ask to spread the word. If you can relate to growing up in a small town and that experience still means something to you - the information contained in the link will tell you all you need to know. If you have a friend who knows someone who knows someone who grew up in a small town - you're in the club as well.
It's been an interesting night of reading all the personal stories that have come out of Parkersburg, IA. The lump in my throat is still there. The final news article I read was the last thing I needed to know. The National Weather Service completed their investigation today. The tornado that struck those small towns in central Iowa was an EF5.
HOW TO HELP.
